PROGNOSIS OF 2,800 PATIENTS WITH EPITHELIAL OVARIAN-CANCER DIAGNOSED DURING 1975-94 AND TREATED AT THE NORWEGIAN RADIUM HOSPITAL

Background Ovarian cancer patients have a poor prognosis. In Norway, h owever, the prognosis has improved steadily since the 1950s, the age-a djusted 5-year relative survival reaching 37% in 1989-93. The aim of t he present study was to explore the prognosis of patients with epithel ial ovarian cancer diagnosed during 1975-94 (the prepaclitaxel period) and treated at The Norwegian Radium Hospital. Method. Relative risks (RR) of dying and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were derived from multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models. Results. A to tal of 2,769 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer were included in the present study. Altogether 54% of the patients were diagnosed with advanced stage disease (stages III and IV), whereas 32% were diagnosed with stage I disease. The prognosis of the patients improved from the 1970s to the 1990s, mainly due to increased short-term survival. In m ultivariate survival analysis, the RR of dying decreased with period o f diagnosis. An RR of 0.77 (95% CI=0.66-0.89) was seen in 1990-94 comp ared with 1975-79. Conclusion. The short-term survival of patients wit h epithelial ovarian cancer improved from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. However, no major improvement in the lone-term survival was see n.